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Toasted Suflower Seed Wholemeal Bread and Some Breakfast Pastries

February 4, 2012 - 9:27am

ananda

Toasted Suflower Seed Wholemeal Bread and Some Breakfast Pastries

Croissant Dough with a Sponge

My base recipe for laminated yeasted dough, with a couple of amendments. A bit of sugar is included, although my own preference remains a croissant without sugar. And I have adapted the formula to use a sponge where 20% of the total flour becomes pre-fermented.

Material

Formula [% of flour]

Recipe [grams]

1. Sponge

Marriage’s Strong Organic White Flour

20

200

Fresh Yeast

0.1

1

Water

12

120

TOTAL

32.1

321

2. Final Dough

Sponge [from 1 above]

32.1

321

Marriage’s Strong Organic White Flour

80

800

Salt

1.3

13

Sugar

5

50

Milk Powder

5

50

Fresh Yeast

4

40

Water

51

510

TOTAL

178.4

1784

3. Laminating Process

Final Dough above

178.4

1784

Butter – lightly salted

36

360

TOTAL

214.4

2144

% pre-fermented flour

20

-

% overall hydration

63

-

FACTOR

1 0

-

Method:

Make the sponge the night before and leave to ferment slowly.

For the dough, blend the milk powder, salt and sugar through the flour. Weigh very cold [I pre-chill the water overnight] water into the mixing bowl, and dissolve the fresh yeast into this. Add the sponge and the dry ingredients. Mix with a hook attachment for 3 minutes on slow and 4 minutes on second speed, scraping down the bowl as necessary.

Cover the dough and store in the chiller for half an hour, and meanwhile cut the butter into slices and roll between 2 plastic bags to create a pliable sheet of butter.

Roll out the croissant dough so that the slab of butter fits onto two thirds of the dough slab. Fold the butter in letter-style to create 2 layers of butter. Rest for one hour in the chiller.

Turn through 90° and roll out to the same size as before. Fold the dough in 3 for the first turn, then chill a further hour. Repeat this 3 more times to give 4 x ½ turns in total. Rest a further one hour

I then split the dough into 3 sections, and made 12 Pain Amande with one piece, 9 Pain aux Raisins with another, and 14 croissants with the last piece.

Glaze each finished unit with egg, dip the Pain Amande in flaked almonds and set to proof for 45 minutes.

I used the electric oven to bake these on convection heat setting at 210°C for approx 15 minutes each tray; there were 5 trays in total.

Cool on wires

Yeasted Sunflower Seed Wholemeal Bread with Mixed Pre-ferments

Both cultures given 2 refreshments prior to use:

Rye Sourdough

Day

Stock

Flour

Water

Total

Friday 09:00

40

120

200

360

Friday 17:00

360

60

100

520

Wheat Levain

Day

Stock

Flour

Water

Total

Friday 09:00

40

200

120

360

Friday 17:00

360

100

60

520

nb. The levain was allowed to ferment slowly overnight in the chiller after the last refreshment.

Material/Stage

Formula [% of flour]

Recipe [grams]

1a] Rye Sourdough

Bacheldre Organic Dark Rye Flour

9

180

Water

15

300

TOTAL

24

480

1b] Wheat Levain

Marriage’s Organic Strong White Flour

15

300

Water

9

180

TOTAL

24

480

2. Final Dough

Rye Sourdough [from 1a]

24

480

Wheat Levain [from 1b]

24

480

Marriage’s Organic Strong Wholemeal

76

1520

Shoyu-Roasted Sunflower Seeds

20

400

Salt

1.5

30

Fresh Yeast

2.5

50

Water

50

1000

TOTAL

198

3960

% pre-fermented flour

24

-

% overall hydration

74.4

-

% wholegrain

85

-

FACTOR

20

-

Method:

Combine wholemeal, water and rye sourdough and mix until clear with a dough hook on first speed. Autolyse for one hour.

Add the wheat levain and bakers’ yeast and mix for 2 minutes on first speed and 3 minutes on second speed. Add the salt, mix 3 more minutes on second speed. Add the toasted seeds and mix on first speed until clear. DDT 27°C.

Bulk ferment dough at 26°C for 2 hours.

Knock back the dough gently, and scale and divide. I made one small panned loaf @ 500g; a large panned loaf, 3-pieced each one @ 350g; a Pullman Pan, 4-pieced each one also @ 350g. The remaining dough, just over 1kg, was used to make one large Boule. Mould each piece round, and rest covered for 15 minutes. Shape each piece and dip in seeds and assemble panned loaves, and use a banneton for the boule.

Final proof: Boule fermented @ 26°C for one hour; 2 panned loaves followed on, so 1¾ hours proof. The Pullman was held back by fermenting at 15°C for 2½ hours.

Bake the loaves with steam…I used my electric oven for today’s bake, pre-heated to 280°C, then settling at 235°C for 10 minutes. Then I switched to convection and baked out the breads at 210°C.

Cool on wires

We are about to go out for dinner at our friends' home nearby. The bread is for them, as really valued customers; the pastries pictured are a gift.

Comments

Andy, I missed reading our posts. I've been quite absent lately from TFL, but finally my program is getting back to normal and I'll start reading and writing again.

After a few mediocre attempts with croissants, I decided to give them a break. I used txfarmer sourdough formula, but it was summer, and her recipe uses a lot of butter, and I had no experience with laminated dough, the results were not bad, but far from perfect. I see your formula uses different ingredients and less butter, maybe I should try to make it while its still winter and less chances for butter to melt.

I like the pan loafs, I bet they taste fantastic... you used yeast to speed up the process, or was it another reason for it?

For the butter levels in the croissants see my additional post below as well. But, one key principle with laminated doughs is always to work cold. The other is plenty of rest between folds and turns, and everything else, actually. If you haven't seen my tutorial on this, posted sometime ago now, it may be worth a look:

I used yeast because that was the style of loaves I wanted to make; they sit up much better in the pans, and I wanted a relatively quicker fermentation than just using levain. Actually, I am really pleased with how they turned out, using 2 different leavens as pre-ferments, plus bakers' yeast in the final dough.

I am reading your croissant formula with a lot of interest but the thing that jumps out at me is the 36% butter. I first tried with Craig Claiborne's NYT cookbook (from the 90s) and then others. His was 42% butter at the lowest. The other formulas I tried went up from there, and I had much more trouble with them. In any case, thanks for posting this in detail. I'm really interested in trying it at some point. I also love the shape. I was in a talk the other day on Islam and the lecturer (a medieval Islamic scholar) surprised me by talking about the invention of the croissant at the battle of Vienna in the 1600s by Viennese bakers mimicking the crescent on the Ottoman flags. Who knew. You have very lucky friends to get such a delivery! -Varda

Mathematical error on my part which I will confess to. There should be 42% butter in my formula too, I made an error in scaling up from the base which I was given as 600g of flour and 250g butter....sorry about that!!!!

There are, I believe a number of myths and legends about the derivation of Croissants. I will not go further than that just now if that's ok?

You are branching out now :-) The laminated doughs are still something I am avoiding but not sure how much longer I can resist and your blog isn't helping me much.....the pull is even stronger now and I am afraid resistance might loose it's battle :-) and my daughter loves those kinds of rolls/breads....

A question about your leaven method. I noticed that with your ww leaven your fed it then it went into the chiller right after the second build. Was that for flavor or time reasons?

Thanks for the post, photos and formulas. I always learn something when you post your breads.

The levain is a white levain, and the refreshment regime was based on time reasons, as I generally feed last thing before I go to bed, then make the dough first thing in the morning. But I'm finding the levain may be a bit riper than I actually want it to be.

Laminated doughs: don't avoid them, they are great fun. Have a read of the tutorial I mentioned above to Codruta, if you haven't already seen it.

Thanks for supplying the link above of your in-depth laminate dough tutorial with the excellent video....I am afraid it has pushed me over to the edge - too well written for me to avoid any longer. These are now on my 'to bake' list and will work themselves up the line.

Thanks for the comment on your leaven and the chiller...nice to know I am not the only one who does that and it doesn't change a thing...love refrigeration!

Regarding fat ratios, I did a little digging into my recipe books and came up with the following stats.

Whilst it is commonplace to express the laminating fat as a percentage of the final dough weight, I offer the following figures as percentage of total fat to flour in the various formulae offered by the different authors. Since some authors include a small proportion of fat within the dough, and everyone has a different "take" on dough contents, simply comparing total fat to flour seems to me to be most appropriate.

Interestingly there are 2 authors who offer really high amounts of fat to flour, beyond what I am familiar with when it comes to something labelled as "croissant".

Michel Suas [Advanced Bread and Pastry] c.50% [a variety of formulae are offered and his base is 25% fat on dough weight]

Elizabeth David [English Bread and Yeast Cookery] 45%

Pittam and Connelly [Practical Bakery] 45%

Andrew Whitley [Breadmatters] 41.6% [this is the base of my recipe, although I use a lot more yeast]

Daniel Leader [Local Breads] 36.8%

There are eleven different formulae offered here; "pays your money, takes your choice!" But there are only 3 that I would not be using. Pittam and Connelly use ADD [using CDC improver] and the 2 at the top....too much fat for what I am familiar with as a croissant.

When Andrew Whitley first set up Village Bakery, he used Elizabeth David's [then] newly published book on English Baking as a bible. Although Daisy_A and I have questioned how English the book really is, as there is much in the way of reference to Wales, Scotland and Ireland too, of course!

The wholemeal breads were yeasted, even though they were also made with 2 different leavens as well. I just thought the pans suited the type of bread I was looking to make, and the loaves always sit up well in a pan. I was using the electric oven only for this bake, and the oven spring is ok, but not like the wood-fired!

It's good for variety on the stall, of course; although these have long-since been bagged already!

Just read your reply to Phil and realized that I totally overlooked the yeast added to your wholemeal loaves...I was focused on the leavens...

So, of course, I have another question for you.....Why did you add yeast with your panned breads along with the leaven? I am assuming it was either for timing or for flavor since there was already a lot of leavening power in the doughs due to the size of the 2 leavens you used....

My only experience with yeast added to a wild yeasted dough is with Peter Reinhart's whole grain loaves and he uses it since most of the grain in his formulas have had a long 'wet' time - either as a Biga, a sd starter or a soaker. Too much more time in a long ferment with whole grains would push the limit on the gluten staying strong due to the fermenting taking place. The added yeast balances the acid out and speeds up the proofing time etc so the dough doesn't over ferment....

I am thinking that is part of the reasoning behind your use of yeast but am not sure so I figured I would ask as I always love learning something new that I can incorporate into my routine to help get the results I am going for.

The style of bread lends itself to yeast in my eyes, but I like using leavens as pre-ferments. But I did not and would never claim them as "sourdough" or "naturally leavened loaves". If I'm selling bread, I want a range of items; at home we only tend to eat the bread without the bakers' yeast!

Can you explain what you mean by 'this style of bread'? Is it that it is a panned loaf as opposed to a free standing one? Or that it is loaded with seeds?

How would the loaf be without the yeast otherwise added? Flavor or consistency differences?

Sorry to get so knit-picky...just trying to understand what the difference is that calls for one type of leavening as opposed to another. (I tend to use wild yeast on every type of loaf I bake....only when doing PR's do I add a bit of IY - but even with those lately I have been skipping putting it in because it doesn't make that much of a difference in fermenting times...)

these loaves were for friends who we visited for dinner. It didn't warrant firing up the brick oven, so I wanted to make something which was easy and relatively quick to bake in the electric oven.

However, seeds can produce a denser loaf, obviously, because they don't expand in baking! These loaves were for a family of four, and I know them well enough to be able to make informed judgement of the bread that all four of them are happy to eat....2 adults and 2 teenagers who are reasonably adventureous eaters.

The style of bread is based on mainstream traditional English type breads, but with the extra complexities of natural pre-ferments as opposed to ones which use bakers' yeast. Note also that, aside from the wheat levain, all the flour used is 100% wholemeal, and that includes some rye too. The last thing I wanted was to produce anything heavy.

Thanks for the explanation and the effects of the different ingredients and baking styles. I am slowly learning how to best use the ingredients I have to get the outcome I am after with my freshly ground whole grains and adding commercial yeast with wild yeast in doughs is still one method that I am experimenting with.

Your use of yeast makes perfect sense to me now. I have found that when making loaves with a high sugar content or when I add cinnamon, which simply stops the wild yeast dead in their tracks....poor guys, it is a must or else my loaves would ferment forever.

Hi Andy,I saw your post yesterday - what a yummy variety of pastries, and the seed-coated breads are gorgeous.Having some seed bread on the go, I shaped my loaves like your seeded-three-boule (correct term?) pan loaf.Thanks so much for such a lovely example to go by.:^) from breadsong

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